A very common way to hold a meeting and to perform group activities with widely dispersed people is teleconferencing. Teleconferencing is highly useful because it allows callers from around the world to participate in the same meeting at low cost.
Teleconferencing has been so successful that user needs have resulted in the development of modern teleconferencing “bridge systems” that allow callers to either dial into or log onto a computerized system that establishes a virtual teleconference. In such systems callers usually have to identify themselves, their access rights are checked, a facilitator is established, and operating rules are set and enforced by the bridge system.
Teleconferencing and the newer bridge systems generally support modern trends in education, business, and other group activities which focus on increasing the number and quality of interactions. For example, modern trends in education lean away from strictly lecture driven modalities and focus more on greater individual participation. In practice teleconferencing participants are often looked at as resources of an organization and as such the desire to incorporate those participants in decision-making at all levels has increased. This becomes a major problem as the geographic diversity of organizations and their participant's increases and as the need for better communications, such as teleconferencing, becomes even more critical. In fact, modern trends have placed such additional burdens on teleconferencing systems that even the newer “bridge teleconferencing systems” are often deemed insufficient.
The result of the foregoing is that more and more programs, be they sales, educational, marketing, or simply group meetings are being delivered and conducted via teleconferencing systems. Teleconferencing reduces costs, makes more efficient use of time, and makes a given meeting available to a greater segment of the population, including home or bed-ridden individuals.
While generally successful, teleconferences have numerous, well-known limitations. Those limitations are a result of, or are acerbated by, the fact that the normal visual cues available with in-person meetings are often not available in a teleconference. For example, it is not possible for a caller to signal that he or she is leaving the conference or to do so without disrupting the conference. For example, assume that a facilitator leads a teleconference being attended by a large number of callers, but that one caller wishes to leave the conference and transfer to another party. Prior art teleconferencing systems provided no way for the caller to do so. In particular, prior art teleconferencing systems provided no way for one caller to transfer to another caller, teleconference, or facilitator while informing the current facilitator that he has left the conference.
However, the prior art has numerous examples of telephone answering systems that enable a caller to either answer a question or to push a button to select a party and then be transferred to that party. However, such ability has heretofore been lacking in teleconference systems.
Therefore, a facilitator led teleconferencing system that enables a caller to transfer to another teleconference or party would be useful. A facilitator led teleconferencing system in which a caller can transfer to another teleconference or to another party without disturbing the ongoing teleconference would be even more beneficial. A facilitator led teleconferencing system in which a caller can transfer to another teleconference or to another party at the touch of a button and without disturbing the ongoing teleconference would be even more beneficial. Still more beneficial would be a facilitator led teleconferencing system in which a caller can transfer to another teleconference or to another party at the touch of a button, can do such without disturbing the ongoing teleconference, and such that the current facilitator is informed that the caller has transferred out of the conference.